Slamming the Climate Skeptic Scam

Slamming the Climate Skeptic Scam

There is a line between public relations and propaganda - or there should be. And there is a difference between using your skills, in good faith, to help rescue a battered reputation and using them to twist the truth - to sow confusion and doubt on an issue that is critical to human survival.

And it is infuriating - as a public relations professional - to watch my colleagues use their skills, their training and their considerable intellect to poison the international debate on climate change.

That's what is happening today, and I think it's a disgrace. On one hand, you have the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – as well as the science academies of every developed nation in the world – confirming that:

climate change is real;

it is caused by human activity; and

it is threatening the planet in ways we can only begin to imagine.

On the other hand, you have an ongoing public debate - not about how to respond, but about whether we should bother, about whether climate change is even a scientific certainty. While those who stand in denial of climate change have failed in the last 15 years to produce a single, peer-reviewed scientific journal article that challenges the theory and evidence of human-induced climate change, mainstream media was, until very recently, covering the story (in more than half the cases, according to the academic researchers Boykoff and Boykoff) by quoting one scientist talking about the risks and one purported expert saying that climate change was not happening – or might actually be a good thing.

Few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as this attack on the science of climate change. It has been a triumph of disinformation – one of the boldest and most extensive PR campaigns in history, primarily financed by the energy industry and executed by some of the best PR talent in the world. As a public relations practitioner, it is a marvel – and a deep humiliation – and I want to see it stop.

Here’s how it works: Public relations is not a process of telling people what to think; people are too smart for that, and North Americans are way too stubborn. Tell a bunch of North Americans what they are supposed to think and you’re likely to wind up the only person at the party enjoying your can of New Coke.

No, the trick to executing a good PR campaign is twofold: you figure out what people are thinking already; and then you nudge them gently from that position to one that is closer to where you want them to be. The first step is research: you find out what they know and understand; you identify the specific gaps in their knowledge. Then you fill those gaps with a purpose-built campaign. You educate. If people are afraid to take Tylenol (as they were after someone poisoned some pills), you explain the extensive safety precautions now typical in the pharmaceutical industry. If people think Martha Stewart is arrogant and uncaring, you create opportunities for her to show a more human side.

In the best cases – the cases that are most personally rewarding – your advice actually guides corporate behavior. That is, if a client wants to protect or revive their reputation, if they want to convince the public that they’re running a responsible company and doing the right thing, the most obvious public relations advice is that they should do the right thing.

It's the kind of advice that, historically, has been a hard sell in the tobacco industry, in the asbestos industry - and too often in the automotive industry. Those sectors have provided some of the most famous examples of PR disinformation: “smoking isn't necessarily bad for you;” “it's not certain that asbestos will give you cancer;” “your seatbelt might actually kill you if you're the one person in five trillion whose buckle jams just as your car flips into a watery ditch.”

But few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as the attack on the scientific certainty of climate change. Few have been so coldly calculating and few have been so well documented. For example, Ross Gelbspan, in his books, The Heat is On and Boiling Point sets out the whole case, pointing fingers and naming names. PR Watch founder John Stauber has done similarly exemplary work, tracking the bogus campaigns and linking various pseudo scientists to their energy industry funders.

I have filled a whole book with details of the documented corporate action plans to deny climate change and confuse the public. Climate Cover-up hit the shelves in the fall of 2009.

One of the best proofs of climate disinformation came in a November 2002 memo from political consultant Frank Luntz to the U.S. Republican Party. Luntz followed the rules: he did the research; he identified the soft spots in public opinion; and he made a clever critical judgment about which way the public could be induced to move.

“The Scientific Debate Remains Open. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”

If you download the memo and read the whole thing, you will notice that Luntz never expressly denies the validity of the science. In fact, he says, “The scientific debate is closing [against us] but is not yet closed.”

” … not yet closed”? Among those who disagreed with that assessment when Luntz wrote this report were the 2,500 scientists in the IPCC, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Canada.

In 2004, Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science magazine, said, “We're in the middle of a large uncontrolled experiment on the only planet we have.” And to back up this sense of certainty, he reported that University of California, San Diego science historian Dr. Naomi Oreskes had published an analysis in Science in which she had combed through 928 peer-reviewed climate studies published between 1993 and 2003 and found not a single one that disagreed with the general scientific consensus.

Yet journalists continued to report updates from the best climate scientists in the world juxtaposed against the unsubstantiated raving of an industry-funded climate change denier - as if both were equally valid.

Notwithstanding, Luntz wrote: “There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.” He recommended that his Republican Party clients do just that. He urged them to marshal their own “scientists” to contest the issue on every occasion. He urged them to plead for “sound science” a twist of language of the sort that George Orwell once said was “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind.”

Luntz's goal – which was embraced with unnerving enthusiasm by the Bush Administration - was to manufacture uncertainty and to politicize science. Like all tragedy, it would be hilarious if you could play it for laughs.

Luntz himself actually backed off this position a couple of years later, saying that the evidence of climate change was overwhelming. So it’s difficult to tell who is being wilfully blind and who, like Luntz, was falling victim to gross negligence in the way they ignore the science - and in the potentially catastrophic risks that they promote. Whichever way you cut it, their actions reflect badly on the whole public relations industry.

As you might assume from my earlier criticism, I'm not suggesting that Frank Luntz or even a dubious cabal of ethics-free PR people are solely to blame for the public confusion on climate change. They have received extensive, if clumsy assistance from the media, which in a facile attempt to provide “balance” is willing to give any opinion an “impartial” airing as long as it is firmly in contradiction with another.

This is not just a feature of the point/counterpoint talking heads that have emerged as the principal vehicle for television news. Newspaper reporters are just as guilty of canvassing “both sides” of every argument, often without providing any critical judgment as to the validity or relative weight of either side.

On the issue of climate change, journalists have consistently reported the updates from the best climate scientists in the world juxtaposed against the unsubstantiated raving of an industry-funded climate change denier - as if both are equally valid. This is not balanced journalism. It is a critical abdication of journalistic responsibility. Any reporter who cannot assess the relative merits of a global scientific consensus - especially in contradiction to an “expert” that the coal industry is paying to help “clear the air” - deserves to have his pencil taken away in solemn ceremony and broken into bits.

There is yet more blame to go around. You could criticize scientists for the dense, cautious and conditional language that they use in talking about the threats of climate change. But in science, credibility is a currency (this, in apparent contradiction to the state of affairs in journalism or PR). A scientist who strays, even momentarily, off the path of certainty or who wanders from hard science into policy is immediately dismissed as someone with an axe to grind.

You could also criticize environmentalists, whose tendency has been to stray too far in the other direction, extrapolating scientific assumptions to create scare stories so dispiriting that they create apathy rather than activism. These, in turn, have made easy targets for the energy industry's climate change deniers.

The important thing at this point, however, is not to assign blame. It is to educate yourself and to join this increasingly urgent political debate. This is not one of those relatively low-level PR boondoggles. We're not talking about single individuals dying because the auto industry held out against seat belt laws. We're not even talking about many 100s of thousands of people dying of lung cancer because the tobacco industry held out for “sound science” while actively increasing the amount of addictive nicotine in their product. We're talking about the future of the planet.

So please read on.

Read everything.

If you are actually practicing public relations, take a close look at your clients and at your own performance. There has to be a point where principle trumps short-term economic gain, a point where you admit to yourself that it’s not worth the money to put the planet at risk.

Whatever you do, you must keep a wary eye. By all means, read the sites that deny the reality of climate change. But then check on www.sourcewatch.org to see who paid for those opinions. Read the DeSmogBlog. Don't accept the word of people who pass themselves off as “skeptics.” Be skeptical yourself. Ask yourself what motive the scientific community has to gang up and invent a phony climate crisis. Compare that to the motives that ExxonMobil or Peabody Coal might have to deny that burning fossil fuels indiscriminately could change irrevocably our existence on the planet.

And if you still leave the lights on when you're done, make sure they're shining in the shamed faces of the PR pros who are still trying to prevent sound, sensible policy change to affect this, perhaps the biggest threat humankind has ever faced.

Previous Comments

I don’t think there’s any question the climate is changing. The bottom line is, there is little we can do about it but adapt, or die. Adaptation, unfortunatly, is not a strong suit of the human race in general, and Americans in particular: We would much rather subsidize failure and weakness than let natural selection take its course. Part of global warming is our fault: I noticed the temperatures dropped off sharply after Election Day. This is because massive amounts of hot-air and bullshit fumes were no longer being released into the environment. The problem is GWB, not SUVs. Let’s deal with it.

This is my first reading of any blog and I’m very impressed with Mr. Hoggan’s position on the issues.I am a graduate from Harvard University and Boston College Law School,and a longtime member, since 1987, of many environmental groups. Tropical deforestation and global warming have been the focus of my attention for many years. I’ve printed out all the stories off the internet I find from ENS and ENN on global warming, and I FULLYAGREE with Hoggan’s assessmnet of the PR snowjob the Republicans have used to deny the validity and existence of global warming. Now that I’ve found this website I d’ont feel so alone. I plan to read all the postings and all the comments on this website over the next few days. Thanks, Mark J. Fiore

This topic is nicely discussed in a paper titled The Significance of Science by Roger Pielke, Jr. of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado. You can view his paper at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2003.15.pdf

I had a mentor who once told me to “mind the butterflies.” At first, I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that, because frankly, it did not have anything to do with what we were discussing at the time – seemed more like a random statement than anything else. Yet, those words hung in my head and after some reflection, I realized what he might have meant – though, once again, my conclusion had absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about at the time…which, at this point is of little matter.

See, at first I was thinking along the lines of…what do butterflies have to do with anything? They don’t do anything really…besides what they need to do to survive and propagate. So putting aside the chaos-theory-flapping-wings thoughts for now…butterflies simply do not affect anything…not really. So why mind them for anything more than the marvel of life and specifically their beauty?

Well, I realized that that is sort of the point:

Butterflies do not affect much…but rather…are affected by much.

Butterflies are quite fragile creatures, so it stands, butterfly habitats are sensitive. Conditions must be right for a butterfly habitat to exist. As such, butterfly habitats are good indicators of adverse changes to the immediate butterfly environment.

As most know, butterflies make their home in some of the most beautiful places on Earth. The ‘beauty’ of these places, of our Earth, is the diversity – the amazing range and scale of living matter literally stops one in their path…or should. True, there are many beautifully diverse places and not all of them contain butterflies, for as I stated earlier, butterflies are amazingly fragile creatures and aptly require an amazingly harmonious habitat to call home.

Yet, for where we do find butterflies, does it not stand to reason that any adverse affect on a butterfly habitat directly correlate to an adverse affect on a beautiful place of this Earth?

It does and for this reason I believe the popularized ‘Butterfly Effect’ should come to have a different meaning and mantra:

For when a butterfly no longer flaps its wings should we expect a more disastrous hurricane.

Not unlike the original, I admit this new mantra may be a bit much.

Nonetheless for now, I echo an old mentor’s advice: “Mind the Butterflies..” yet add, “…for then we are minding our home.”

And lastly, with all these thoughts on butterflies I have come to this final proposition:

The strength of a habitat is inversely-related to the fragility of its constituents.

I read with interest all I can on the Global Warming situation to form an enlightened opinioin. There is one article that I would like for anyone to comment, ie the article by McIntyre at this link: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf. Their science seems rigorous. If Mann (1998) is the basis of the IPCC comment on global warming, wouldn’t their claim have an impact? Doesn’t this article deserve a serious response to really settle any claim? Thanks.

However since 1998, there have been at least ten proxy studies, analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes, ice cores, etc. The results all confirm the same general conclusion: although each of the temperature reconstructions are different (due to differing calibration methods and data used), they all show some similar patterns of temperature change over the last several centuries. Most striking is the fact that each record reveals that the 20th century is the warmest of the entire record, and that warming was most dramatic after 1920.

Interesting to note in all the months that have passed not a single attempt to reply to the paper - one of those nonexistent attempts to debunk the “consensus” that global warming is man-made - that you linked.

Anyone who starts with or even mentions the false premise that there’s any debate on whether climate change is real immediately loses all credibility.

Climate change can best be summed up with a single word: INEVITABLE!

The next “big lie” is that there’s any sort of absolute consensus on whether anthropogenic climate change is significant - though there is a consensus on this point, it exists only among the alarmists, most noteably those who’s primary source of grant or other income depends on pushing this as a critical issue. Perhaps the reason a plethora of studies showing otherwise may not be readily available is the fact that anyone in the scientific community who dares suggest the sky ISNOT falling suddenly is unable to secure grants… yet at some point the alarmists will have to admit their gloom-and-doom predictions have been consistelty proven to be grossly inflated at best and outright false at worst. They got wise this time - their latest prediction sounds a lot like their last one but won’t be testable for about 94 years - by that time most of us will be dead and their children grandchildren will be struggling to explain how they got it so wrong.

Greg,
you idiot.
The consensus on climate change is not 100%, but it’s very close. Within the IPCC, 1.5% of scientists are skeptics. That said, 98.5% confirm climate change is real, and has significant impacts. They’re not pushing this issue for grant money. It’s so much easier to find examples of the skeptics pushing their views for money – most of them are.
See www.sourcewatch.org
So anyways, 98.5% is a consensus. Not absolute, but very close. The IPCC isn’t made up of alarmists. These scientists all have peer-reviewed journal articles.
It’s an outright lie to say that the “gloom and doom predictions have been consistelty proven to be grossly inflated at best and outright false at worst”.
Nothing’s been proven either way. You also say they “won’t be testable for about 94 years”. That’s true - and wow, you really contradict yourself in that paragraph – you are one sloppy PR guy.
The scientific consensus does lean heavily towards the so-called “gloom and doom” predictions. That’s why it’s time to move past the debate on climate change and start addressing ways to mitigate it.

The way you state your point seems to be a call to an end of discussion on an issue. I’m sure you might not see it this way, but if we backed things up a few hundred years, we might find you amongst the crowd that was telling Galileo that there could be no debate as to whether the Earth was at the center of the Universe or not.

I may just be a self-employed worker who spends most days cleaning out FL foreclosures, but I can tell when emotions have overrun a person’s logic. I’m going to try to train my son (who is still being pushed around in a little lightweight stroller right now) to identify the signs, and approach discussion with those who are ready to end discussion on any topic carefully.

I fear for reasoned debate when people who should have at least a pretence of intellectual vigour resort to labelling people with a contrary view by labels that demean rather than debating the science.

1)Just because a majority of “climate scientists” presume that Global warming oops now climate change is occuring because of Human action does not necessarily make it so.

2)Computer climate modelling is not reality.

3)Lies, damned lies and statistics. The devil in science is in the details. Just where do we start or measurements from and how we measure often reveals more about what poor scientists are trying to obstruficate as the truth rather than real science. The date measurements start is an obvious example of this.

4)Accusations of funding bias: Hint to those not in the know: Most science is sourced by organisations with an agenda. And to make a point not everyone trusts European science funding as it seems for to easily skewed towards justifying protectionism in trade.

‘Intellectual vigour’ indeed.
To the second point, you should actually look at some state of the art computer modelling. These guys aren’t dolts. They test their programs by modelling historical climates for which they have reliable independent data and the similarities are uncanny, at a high order of complexity. I was surprised myself how precisely they correlated.
Yes, a model is not reality, just as a map is not reality. But if a map of Niagara Falls tells you that 3.4 k SSE of the downtown is a precipitious drop into the river, why don’t you go right ahead and challenge that?
To the third, science, above many other disciplines, has multiple ways to measure itself against reality, against which it stands or falls. When it strays too far from predictive accuracy it is no longer science. If you’re going to challenge the consensus lets see a compelling hypothesis. In thirty years of denial not one such hypothesis has survived the ‘rigour’ of scientific testing; you’re blowing smoke - and embarrassing yourself.
The contention that ‘most science’ is skewed by agenda-driven external agencies is a vulgar smear; a desperate strategy advanced by losers who can’t fight science on its own ground, see ‘creationism’.

It is reassuring to think that most research is truly empirical and is not influenced by the researcher’s thinking.

The contention that ‘most science’ is skewed by agenda-driven external agencies is a vulgar smear; a desperate strategy advanced by losers who can’t fight science on its own ground….

This issue has been the subject of articles and books for at least the last century. Many authors have written that they believe most research is highly influenced by the researchers’ opinions. One of the books that I read in a political science course (in the 1970s) proposed that no research was truly empirical. At they time, I disagreed with the author’s premise. The more that I have learned, the more convinced I have become that this author was correct.

It is simply human nature to consider more strongly any data that is more in line with your beliefs than data which contradicts your beliefs. What you are painting as a “vulgar smear” is really an acknowledgement of human nature.

You seem to be an eternal optimist on the side of hysterical pessimists which is a new irony somewhat lost on me!

You say “science isn’t skewed by a political agenda” but you ignore the entire history of the IPCC is reports scewed by a political agenda. No scientific body in history has been criticised by so many scientists and so many scientists have never been so provenly right to do so.

You say “take a look at the state of the art modelling”. you’re having a laugh aren’t you? No computer model on the planet can predict 5 days ahead accuraetly. The British modellers at the UK Met Office who contribute so much to the IPCC hit our shores!!

You’re faith shows a ‘religeous zeel’ and blind faith so blind it’s incredulous. The IPCC computer models of CO2 driving temperature as late as 2005 were fundamentally flawed. They are based on CO2 pushing up temperature which is the OPPOSITEMODEL to being accurate. Temperature drives up CO2 levels as proven in Dr Glassmans paper ‘The Acquittal of Carbon Dioxide’ based on the solutbility of CO2 in water.

You say “In thirty years of denial not one such hypothesis has survived the ‘rigour’ of scientific testing”. Can I refer you both to Dr Glassmans paper - you will not only find in there the real reason for high CO2 levels (natural variability) but a host of flaws in the IPCC recording of CO2 levels, modelling of CO2 models, (mis)understanding of CO2 levels, scientific stupidities and real problems the IPCC has with even basic maths.

Finally, if you want to know what’s false about the AGW scam try all of the following scare stories which are climatic lies;

Johnny B: I am a secretly skeptical atmospheric scientist. The fact that I’m skeptical might make you expect to agree with your facts, but you are wrong on a number of them:

1. Sea levels, on average, HAVERISEN, though slightly.
2. The current CO2 spike is absolutely, positively, unequivocally and certainly caused by human activites.
3. Temperature increases do indeed tend to cause more drought. Precipitation and evapotranspiration increase equally overall, but the wet places tend to get most of the precip increase, so that (IF the climate warms) there is a tendency for the total portion of the globe projected to desertify to increase.
4. The spatial extent of ice caps IS decreasing. There are tiny pockets that are thickening - is this what you’re referring to?
5. I’m afraid this isn’t false either. I question the cause of most of the temperature rise, not the effect.
6. Did anyone ever say that climate change was causing deforestation? Chainsaws, axes and matches are each more effective.
7. I think I agree with you on this one that this will end up false. I actually think reduced equator to pole temperature gradients will reduce climate variability. Most of my peers disagree.
8. Not a clue.
9. You are definitely wrong on this one. It’s just a matter of effort.
10. Oh, come on, even a climate alarmist would agree that we’ve already committed ourselves to high CO2 levels for the next couple of centuries, so no one disagrees with you on this.

I’m going to start with number 4. The spatial extent of ice caps IS decreasing. There are tiny pockets that are thickening - is this what you’re referring to?

Please show me a world index of all glaciers and ice. I guarantee that while some spots on the icecap might be melting, parts are growing also.

9. Alternative energies are just a matter of effort. Mr. Cool, I hope your not one of these people who thinks we can legislate new energy into existence. Coal, oil and natural gas are cheaper. Nothing will replace them until they become more expensive than another form of energy which is a long way off. I also predict that somebody is gonna come up with something much better than solar or wind power to power cars.

Sorry for having my earlier post deleted. I had some second thoughts about the criticisms I made. WRT your comment on slander, Ball has no right to slander Flannery for a lack of climatological know-how, for he has very little himself. Flannery is also a very successful and respected academic in phylogeny. There is no academic evidence of his understanding GCMs, but he would know as much as just about anyone regarding past climate changes. Neither one of them should really be a spokesperson on climate change, but they both have that right.

The “inconvenient truth” that Al Gore points out is very, very simple. Throughout history, warming has gone hand in hand with airborne carbon concentrations. And carbon concentrations have been skyrocketing at a rate never before seen.

There is no complete agreement on what the relationship is between carbon and climate, but the correlation is vivid.

So, the thing here is that in the last couple of centuries we've become very effective at pulling carbon out of the ground and pumping it into the air.

Greg#2 - The IPCC claims to have about 2,500 scientists and you say 98% of them agree with man-made climate change. But over 19,000 scientists, that aren’t IPCC have signed a petition against man-made climate science and their numbers (signatures) are still growing.

I don’t give a hotdog for ‘consensus’ it’s the science. An the science I’ve seen rests any global warming at the feet of the sun, cosmic ray flux, Earths magnetic fields and angle to the sun and water vapour.

There is no case I’ve seen (other than stupid IPCC computer models) that links CO2 with Earth warming up. There is no history in over 420,000yrs of CO2 ever driving temperature - in fact CO2 levels rise 400 to 1,400yrs AFTER all previous global warmings.

In evaluating whether or not some sky-is-falling concept is true or not, I generally try to look at the size of the headlines, whether or not the highlights are in red, and whether or not there is some balancing information presented.
In the case of GW, I see huge headlines, lots of highlights in red with flames around them, and absolutely nothing in terms of balance.
One would at least expect some kind of balance with regard to the predictions of how GW might effect the future. ITCAN’TBEALLNEGATIVE! In fact, there might be far more benefits to man than detriments. There might be some species that don’t make it, even cute ones like Polar Bears, but GW will certainly also benefit some groups, and might even create new ones (if we believe anything Darwin said.) When I start to see balance, I will be less skeptical.
P.S. I will also believe the scientists more when I see them investing their personal assets in things that will appreciate in value if GW is true, and divesting themselves from assets that will decline in value. No evidence to date of any such asset reallignment.

The PR folks that should be ashamed of themselves are the Gorizuki alarmists. Using small children to deliver a message they have no chance of understanding just so they can build a cardboard castle with Daddy, or Suzuki screaming at a classroom of children. This is disgraceful and even more so when you understand that the whole theory of AGW is being shown to be a hoax. Media outlets are beginning to tire of running the same old hype about AGW and are now beginning to run stories about the people that propagate the hoax. A new documentary is coming out from the good folks over in the UK demonstrating the lies of AGW.
http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=CZ434669U&news_headline=global_warming_is_lies_claims_documentary

I don’t see the need to continue arguing about the reality of climate change from CO2 - because the solution to global warming is beneficial in other ways - getting America off of foreign oil!! Replace as much fossil fuel use with renewables and over just 7 years our energy bills, including gasoline costs, will go down if we also drive electric cars.

The oilpeople don’t want this to happen!! -

- But reducing emissions from fossil fuels, by replacing them with renewable electricity, would be good for the rest of us - we actually kill THREE birds with one stone: 1] we kill pollution that causes asthma, cancer and heart disease; 2] America gets to reduce imports of expensive foreign oil, which lowers the energy bills; 3] we reduce emissions that are contributing to global warming [whether it is real or not, the potential threat is there, so do it anyway since there are other benefits].

Really, it is time to stop the bickering and denials like that start off the comments after every DeSmogBlog article. I would like the last words on the subject to be: there is a high degree of certainty that GW is real, certainly the signs of warming are obvious, and if it is due to the sun then the CO2 is still contributing to it, and the relationship of warming and CO2 is historical fact. So get off the fossil fuels, decarbonise, it will be GOOD for us!!

Electric cars have their own problems. To start, lithium is expensive and limited. We use coal, oil and natural gas because it’s cheaper than anything else. If there were something better, someone would be producing it. CO2 molecules emit heat but it does not matter. What matters is how long it stays in the atmosphere, how the biomass of the planet acts upon it and how the clouds impact it. We now know that clouds probably produce a negative feedback reducing the effect of CO2 emissions greatly. Also, Richard Lindzen recently published a new paper explaining that infrared radiation is escaping into space much faster than scientists previously thought. There is absolutely no historical fact that CO2 and warming are related.

Big Academia has scored at least 60 billion taxpayer dollars in the USA alone in support of their alarmism and will continue to score big until the public tires of their proposed crisis.

Big Oil wants to score profits by providing a product that everybody appears to want to use and enjoy; none more so than Big Academia, Big Government, Big environmentalist, Big UN, and Big banking. All of whom vie for the prize of largest “carbon footprint” as they ceaselessly perambulate about the globe attending one gala convention after another to warn us of the dangers of doing as they do.

Let’s not forget Big Turbine and they are indeed BIG. Certainly Rachel Carlson must be twirling in her grave faster than a turbine in a gale force wind. Odd how environmentalists are now clamoring for the entire country from sea to shining sea (and beyond) to be wired together with hundreds of thousands of miles of high tension lines and tens of thousands 300 foot bird and bat mulchers. Presumably all this to “save the environment???) From the immortal lyrics of Tom Lehrer: “Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly,
But they don’t last long if they try.”
But in our current enviro-speak it appears more to be “to hell with Rachel’s damn birds I’m long on GE”

Where are we little people in all this?

It’s really quite simple, allow us to keep what we earn and let us each decide who is our own personal “Big brother”

RE: “But reducing emissions from fossil fuels, by replacing them with renewable electricity, would be good for the rest of us - we actually kill THREE birds with one stone: 1] we kill pollution that causes asthma, cancer and heart disease; 2] America gets to reduce imports of expensive foreign oil, which lowers the energy bills; 3] we reduce emissions that are contributing to global warming [whether it is real or not, the potential threat is there, so do it anyway since there are other benefits].”

But of course we would killing a lot more birds, millions of them as our centrally planned economy fails; North Korea is facing mass starvation because the economy is centrally directed; the free economy just to the south faces no such killing of millions of birds and even people.

Your “renewable” energy is just another marker for central authoritarian planning which through fascism and communism killed over 50 million people in the last century alone - why are “we” so eager to return to the killing fields of planned economies?

The trouble with you leftists is that you have zero knowledge of what you are talking about; you know nothing of energy requirements, distribution systems and their related costs and even less of how competitive economies work.

Why should anyone listen to inexperienced idiots as personified by the Democrats and their statist bureaucrats?

But i really like the oil people and from the looks of it so does the IPCC, the president, and all the greenies who consume the stuff by tanker-fulls per day; Are they having a secret love affair with big oil?

I can conclude no other explanation - why do they use so much to go to their endless meeting at world class resort spas all over the planet?

As for electric cars. They use more fossil fuel than gas cars. I don’t know if you are aware of this but electricity has to be made; normally with coal, gas, and oil. And no, there will not be one bird left on the planet if we wired up with windmills and solar panels will bankrupt us and cover the natural areas theus polluting the earth.

“But i really like the oil people and from the looks of it so does the IPCC, the president, and all the greenies who consume the stuff by tanker-fulls per day; Are they having a secret love affair with big oil?”

No. International meetings require participants to be there, otherwise language and custom and practice vagaries can result in miscommunication, in errors and in angst. Sadly, oil is still the major fuel of transport (for now) and so it does need to be used to get everyone in the same place. Greenies are over-consuming it, Americans (in general) are, with cars that get pitiful mpg and electrical devices that they never switch off.

“As for electric cars. They use more fossil fuel than gas cars. I don’t know if you are aware of this but electricity has to be made; normally with coal, gas, and oil.” I’d really like to see where you get that usage assertion from.

As more energy becomes available from renewable sources, electrical cars will become more and more and more sustainable. They already can travel over 400 miles on a single charge and can reach speeds of over 100mph. Plus they don’t give you asthma-inducing smog in towns, unlike your beloved oil.

“there will not be one bird left on the planet if we wired up with windmills”. That comment is just so absurd it needs no rebuttal.

“solar panels will bankrupt us” - wrong.

“and cover the natural areas theus polluting the earth.” Covering anything does not “pollute” it. Solar can be developed in any currently-empty desert region (e.g. most of North Africa, Central Australia, etc) or most flat roofs (available in every city worldwide).

RE: “No. International meetings require participants to be there, otherwise language and custom and practice vagaries can result in miscommunication, in errors and in angst.”

The only real angst that applies to these conferences is over the vintages of the wine or the sources of the boatloads of caviar consumed. Caspian sea Caviar is preferred.

Why is it that my company holds international internet meetings on complex shared devolopment issues with both India and China all the time? Paper communication is always preffered for accuracy anyway. Why are these meetings alway held at resort venues with 5 star hotels and beaches nearby? (Seychelles, Bali, Durban, Rio, Cancun, Buenos Aires, etc etc etc) Why not downtown Detriot in January?

RE: “As more energy becomes available from renewable sources, electrical cars will become more and more and more sustainable.”

No they wont, they will become so expensive and rare that only the people who fly off to these IPCC resort venues on other peoples money will be able to afford them. Thirty years ago you &#@^$*! greenies where doing a sit down protest to stop ten miles of transmission line in my home state from being constructed becaue it would “destroy the environement.” Now you want to string up 25,000 miles of transmission lines to carry small interemittant energy sources from failure prone weak windmills to laods far away. There will not be migratory bird left on the planet when “green energy” is fully implimened.

There is no green in green energy, only both kinds of RED; the red ink kind and more importantly Marxist RED kind.

……But kill off the most most frail and least able to afford the “green” energy that President Obama has told us must “Necessarily Skyrocket” How is it that these “greenies” always justify their own exorbitant lifestyles (all run purely on fossil fuels) but demand those who support them with taxes cut back on the consumption they at least have earned the right to consume? Why does Moochelle Obama need a dozen vacations a year? She doesn’t even have a job? These people have NEVER worked!!! They only consume. Hopw is that?

Linkages to asthma, caner and heart disease to the use of fossil fuels is totally unsupported Tabloid Junk Science of no substance. In each case the authors are seeking “free money” ie money picked from other people’s pockets by our federal gangsta govt.

RE: “2] America gets to reduce imports of expensive foreign oil,”

Which will make fungible oil cheaper for China who will use it to make things cheaper than we can. They will use the oil make windmills for us so that we can go broke even quicker. Why is it that oil is all we are concerned about? How about Lithium Batteries: Chile, China, Australia, and Russia are the major lithium producers so we still must still import. Why not instead free our economy to be the most productive on earth so that we can beneficially trade our productivity with whatever we need?

RE: 3] we reduce emissions that are contributing to global warming [whether it is real or not, the potential threat is there, so do it anyway since there are other benefits].

Why not instead defund the EPA, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education et al?

There is absolutely no constitutional authority for any of these agencies so there would only be benefits. We could lower our taxes, enjoy the liberties we fought to preserve and consume what we have earned the right to consume; no special classes of aparachicks who presume to tell us how to live while doing exact opposite themselves - people like Al Gore.

doesn’t matter whether you are checking the poll results of suzuki or Honda they are making revenues by polluting the world. Even you will give them free grants for cleaning the environment they will not stop.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.

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